Mummy Dearest: A Horror Tradition Unearthed (1999)

[bunniefuu]

Welcome to the gorgeously restored

Vista Theatre in Los Angeles,

which has re-created

the mystical Egyptian dcor

that was so popular

in movie palaces of the 1920s.

Egypt was all the rage then,

in the years following

the discovery of King Tut's tomb,

with all those legends

about its supposedly fatal curse.

So, what better place

could we have chosen

to celebrate Hollywood's

most famous restored Egyptian,

Boris Karloff as the mummy?

When Universal released The Mummy,

it had already established itself

as Hollywood's leading house of horrors,

with films like Dracula, Frankenstein

and The Old Dark House.

But The Mummy was something

radically different.

This time the monster was also

a halfway sympathetic lover,

and the timeless romantic fantasy

of a love transcending time and space

inspired countless other films.

So let's do a little

archaeological excavating of our own,

as we unearth the original story

of our... Mummy Dearest.

What's the matter, man?

For heaven's sakes, what is it?

He went for a little walk!

You should have seen his face!

By the time Boris Karloff took his

legendary midnight stroll in The Mummy,

the public was already familiar

with the mysteries of ancient Egypt

through the spectacular discovery,

a decade earlier,

of King Tutankhamen's

treasure-laden tomb.

Almost as fascinating as the treasures

were the stories,

fuelled by an eager press,

of a deadly curse believed to strike down

all those who disturbed

Tutankhamen's resting place.

"Death, eternal punishment,

for anyone who opens this casket."

Good heavens, what a terrible curse!

If anybody died

who was even distantly related

to anybody who was around when the

tomb was opened, this would be news.

This would be indirect evidence

of the curse at work.

Even if the curse was bogus,

the Egyptian belief in immortality wasn't.

To assure resurrection, an elaborate ritual

of mummification evolved.

The jackal-headed god Anubis

presided over the embalming rites,

which required 70 days for completion.

Curiously, the screenplay

that became The Mummy

was not originally an Egyptian story at all.

Asked to develop a vehicle for the new

horror superstar, Boris Karloff,

screenwriter and journalist Nina Wilcox

Putnam concocted Cagliostro,

based on the legend of a historical figure

who claimed to have lived for centuries.

The historical figure of that name

was a poor Italian in the 18th century

who passed himself off as an alchemist

and a hypnotist, conducted seances,

became a fashionable figure, apparently,

in the aristocratic world of France.

Putnam's story was substantially revised

by John L Balderston,

a playwright who had collaborated

on both Dracula and Frankenstein.

He also knew

a thing or two about mummies.

He was always a student of history.

He loved reading history. We had

all kinds of books around the house.

And Egypt, of course, was one

of the main parts of ancient civilisation,

and he was intrigued by it.

He was in London after World w*r I -

he worked for the New York World

as a correspondent -

and one of his assignments

just turned out to be

the opening of King Tutankhamen's tomb.

So, of course, he was in his element.

He loved it.

The Mummy marked

the directorial debut of Karl Freund,

the celebrated German cinematographer

who had already photographed

Universal's Dracula,

taking his trademark mobile camera

deep into Transylvanian crypts.

He also shot the highly expressionistic

Murders in the Rue Morgue,

in which Bela Lugosi

played the Dracula-like role

of a scientist who also needed

women's blood -

not for sustenance, but for mad

evolutionary experiments.

For The Mummy, Freund would get to call

all the shots, not just the visual ones.

"Lmhotep. High Priest

of the Temple of the Sun at Karnak."

Poor old fella. Now what could you have

done to make 'em treat you like that?

Balderston's screenplay

renamed the mummy "lmhotep",

after the real Egyptian architect

who built the first pyramid.

For a while, "lmhotep" was a working title

of the film, along with "King of the Dead".

Meanwhile, Universal was slightly

renaming the film's star as well.

Well, he was billed

as "Karloff the Uncanny",

and at that time, and today also,

there are very few stars

that are billed just by their last name.

So he had achieved an awful lot

between the years 1931 and 1933,

between the first Frankenstein film

and the filming of The Mummy.

Once more, Karloff would wear

an extraordinary make-up,

created by Universal's

resident wizard, Jack Pierce.

I think what made the mummy make-up

work was Karloff, and Karloff's face.

He had this great bone structure for it,

and his performance,

even though he was supposed to be

this dead thing coming back to life,

it was very subtle, but it was frightening.

I think the combination of Pierce and

Karloff was such a great combination,

and they were such a great team.

With the two of them together, they've

made these classic images in horror films

that I don't think will ever be matched.

In preparation for the make-up,

studio publicity claimed

that Pierce had carefully studied

ancient Egyptian embalming techniques.

I really have no clue what research he did.

When you look at real mummies...

The first mummy that I ever saw

was Boris Karloff

in the Jack Pierce make-up, and I thought

that's what mummies look like.

When I finally saw pictures of Rameses,

I found he was kinda different-looking.

It wasn't quite the same effect.

I think, actually, putting the make-up on

for The Mummy and taking it off

took longer than

the make-up for Frankenstein.

I only know what I've read,

and I read something about, I think,

eight hours to do the mummy.

Which I can believe - especially since

Pierce had to wrap his body as well.

Back in those days they only had spirit

gum, cotton, collodion, stuff like that,

but something we even do today

is called an old-age stipple,

where you actually stretch

the person's skin.

And I'm sure what he did

is paint a layer of spirit gum on Karloff,

stick some cotton on - and I understand

he used Egyptian cotton,

I think just because it was finer cotton -

glued that on, painted over it with either

more spirit gum or collodion, and dried it.

Then, once it was dry, he released it

and it would form these wrinkles.

And I'm sure he did many layers.

Where it didn't form enough

he'd add a bit more and build it up.

Very tedious, time-consuming,

very painful, I'm sure, for Boris.

I still can't believe... Having this collodion

and stuff around your eyes,

he must have teared up

through this whole process.

Had to hold his breath as well, I'm sure.

Fortunately, he didn't have

to wear the bandages as lmhotep

except for a very brief

period of time on camera.

But it was really excruciatingly painful

to take that make-up off.

I know that they spent hours and hours

and hours putting it on for the first day.

My understanding was

Pierce didn't even consider the fact

that Boris might have to relieve himself

some time during the day,

and that became a bit of a problem.

And when they completed it, he said

"You've done a wonderful job,

but you've forgotten to give me a fly."

For the exotic dual role

of Princess Anck-es-en-Amon

and her modern-day counterpart,

Universal cast the Hungarian-born

New York stage actress Zita Johann.

Zita Johann had been a powerhouse

Broadway dramatic actress of the 1920s.

She had played in Machinal,

in which she played a murderess who

goes screaming to the electric chair.

Terrific dramatic actress. She believed in

what she called "the theatre of the spirit".

She sat in her dressing room

before performing, said her prayers,

"died unto herself", as she put it,

and became her character.

There's death there for me.

And life for something else

inside me that isn't me.

But it's alive too, and fghting for life.

Save me from it, Frank. Save me.

With this almost sacred

approach to acting,

at the same time she had a very

enormous disrespect for Hollywood.

As she told me in her richly theatrical

way, "I had more respect

for the wh*res on 42nd Street

than I did for the stars in Hollywood."

When I met her in 1979,

at her pre-Revolutionary w*r house

by the Hudson River,

she was still drama incarnate.

She gave the interview

by sitting on a chaise lounge

and adjusting her lighting

before she began to talk.

And we weren't filming anything.

That was just her.

Zita Johann was a remarkable actress,

and when I first got to know her

it was rather guarded that she told me

about her interest in the occult.

But the more we got into the making

of The Mummy and the more she relaxed,

she actually began to discuss

her interest in the occult sciences.

I am Anck-es-en-Amon, but I...

I'm somebody else too.

I want to live,

even in a strange new world.

She was a devout believer

in reincarnation.

She told me that at one point in the 1920s

she had gone on a spiritual retreat

in the Adirondacks and had levitated.

Then she added

"Coming down was rotten."

So she was really a perfect choice

for Princess Anck-es-en-Amon.

She was absolutely

in spiritual key with the character.

- Look and wonder.

- A fgure of myself.

It is my coffn,

made by my father against my death.

What mummy has usurped

my eternal resting place?

It is thy dead shell.

I tried then to raise this body.

I could raise it now, but it would be

a mere thing that moved at my will,

without a soul.

Now, when I got to know her and visited

her in this wonderful old spooky house,

she had diagrams on the table

of cabbalistic symbols,

and she did yoga, and she would

teach acting courses as well.

But she incorporated all of this spirituality

and mysticism into her acting.

She'd say "All right,

if you're going to play Medea,

let's call upon Medea

to come into the circle."

She was a very headstrong woman

in the Katharine Hepburn mould.

And the irony of that

is that Katharine Hepburn,

had she not left for the East Coast

when she did,

would have screen-tested

for The Mummy.

Zita had a very headstrong,

determined kind of spirit,

and in 1932

that must have been a disaster,

because she was butting heads

with everyone.

She told me she walked

into Irving Thalberg's office

and said "Irving,

why do you make such rubbish?"

Even men didn't talk

to Irving Thalberg that way.

But he actually said "For the money,

Zita, for the money."

And she behaved in a way

that suited her character.

She was a stage actress,

and she was a very fine stage actress.

She had talent, breeding, looks,

and I think that she felt

that she was too good for Hollywood.

But the money was phenomenal.

And in 1931 and '32,

to make $7500 a week was something

you just couldn't turn down.

But the actress's handsome salary

was small compensation

for the legendary difficulties

she endured with her director.

Zita remembered that one day

on the Universal lot "a huge monster" -

the huge monster being Karl Freund, who

weighed 300lbs and was not a tall man -

came up to her and said "In one scene

you must play it from the waist up nude."

And she said "Why do I have to play it

from the waist up nude?"

And he said "The scene in The Mummy,

you must play from the waist up nude."

Well, what she soon realised was that

this was his first picture as a director.

He was looking for a scapegoat,

and he wanted to antagonise her

so he could say to the front office "I'm

working with this temperamental actress

and she refuses to do what I want."

So she said to Karl Freund

"I'll be happy to play it from the waist up

nude if you can get it past the censors."

And she said "And I had him there."

So it was a very unhappy working

relationship, Zita Johann and Karl Freund.

At one point she was debating

about the way to play a certain scene,

and here was Zita

with her "theatre of the spirit" approach

and Karl Freund,

who was a genius at cinematography

but had a very mechanical way

of sh**ting a picture.

She said

"I want to play it a different way."

And he said "Well, this is where

the camera is. You will play it here."

And Zita responded "Well, then move

the g*dd*mn camera - it's on wheels."

So this was the relationship.

Karl Freund did not give her a chair

on the set with her name on it.

He made her stand

against a board for two days

so she wouldn't get a crease

in the skirt she was wearing.

His most remarkable atrocity was that

he saved for the last day of sh**ting

a reincarnation scene in which

Zita played a Christian martyr

who was to be fed to the lions.

The cameraman was in a cage of his own,

Freund was in a cage of his own -

as she said, "a very large cage" -

everybody was protected, and here

she had to walk in among these lions.

And, as she put it,

she was "exhausted beyond fear".

So she walked in among the lions

and thought "Who cares?"

She said "Those lions

looked at me and thought

'That's just a sack of exhausted bones.

Who cares?"'

And they didn't bother her.

My love has lasted longer

than the temples of our gods.

No man ever suffered as I did for you.

She adored Boris Karloff.

But she said something

very interesting about Karloff -

remember, this is probably after

Frankenstein, his greatest performance.

She said "When I first met him,

I felt this incredible wave of sadness."

She said "His eyes

were like shattered mirrors."

"Whatever his pain was, it was very deep

and very much a part of his soul."

And she said "I never intruded."

"He was always a perfect gentleman,

he always knew his lines."

He never complained about, possibly, one

of the most arduous make-up experiences

he would ever have at Universal,

under the hands of Jack Pierce.

Back in those days

they did not have 12-hour work days,

and they would sometimes

work until dawn.

And The Mummy

was an exhausting picture.

But Zita relied on the occult powers

of her faith to keep her going.

You will not remember

what I show you now,

and yet I shall awaken memories

of love and crime and death.

The most famous sequence in the picture

is probably the one in which

Zita and Karloff look into the pool

and she experiences her past lives.

And during this sequence, Zita -

because of lack of food

and working till late, late hours, and the

problems she was having with Freund -

she passes out.

And she claims she had what was

one of two near-death experiences.

She said "I could see myself

leaving my body."

And, of course, the first thing she sees

when she opens her eyes is Boris Karloff,

completely in make-up,

but out of character,

saying "Zita! Zita, darling!

Are you all right?"

And she, of course,

didn't want to let any of the crew know

that she had been on another plane.

The Mummy took Universal

to a new box-office plane,

as audiences thrilled to its unique

mixture of horror and romance.

Beyond the excellent performances,

careful art direction paid off handsomely.

The detailed re-creation of Egyptian

murals and hieroglyphics,

supervised by the noted

Hungarian artist Willy Pogany,

lent an unusual air of authenticity

to an otherwise fantastic story.

Technically and artistically,

it was one of the studio's most

accomplished fright films to date.

The best scene, perhaps, in this film

is the coming-to-life

of the mummy at the beginning.

But what is so remarkable

about that to me

is that they went to all the trouble to

make up Boris Karloff from head to foot

in the mummy wrappings,

in the extreme make-up,

and yet they just show his face a little bit,

they show his hand a little bit,

they move down the chest

as the hand moves,

but they don't show him walking around.

There's even a still of the standing Karloff

in the make-up reaching to take the scroll.

But they didn't have that shot

in the movie.

And what self-discipline

there must have been

to go for the implication

and the suggestion and the hint

rather than the blunt statement.

And as for Boris Karloff,

he was an actor who could very easily

be seen to be overacting.

His looks were so striking,

his voice was so distinctive,

that all he'd have to do would be

to do something fairly strong

and it's overwhelming.

So he had the wisdom,

or his directors, or the combination,

had the wisdom to understate things.

Have we not met before, Miss Grosvenor?

No. I don't think so.

I don't think one would forget

meeting you, Ardath Bey.

Then I am mistaken.

The voice has very little inflection.

He hardly moves physically.

But there's always that sense that there's

this great overwhelming force

ready to come out at any time.

In time-honoured Hollywood fashion,

The Mummy borrowed significantly

from a proven box-office sensation.

There is the shadow of Dracula

hovering over this story line.

John Balderston, who had done

the adaptation of the play Dracula

for the American stage,

when he was working on this script

it seems as though

he remoulded the material -

consciously or unconsciously,

perhaps unconsciously -

but remoulded it in the light

of some of the relationships

and situations in Dracula.

You have an undead person

who has a strong romantic

overtone to him...

My blood now flows through her veins.

She will live through

the centuries to come...

as I have lived.

The ancient rites must

be performed over thy body.

Then I will read the great spell with which

!sis brought Osiris back from the grave.

And thou shalt rise again.

A character in both cases who has

a powerful hypnotic control over others.

Come... here.

"Come here" says Dracula.

The mummy, by a much longer distance,

has the power to cause things

to happen across the city.

Even to the point of the talisman -

the cross in one case,

the !sis figure in the other case.

All that, if you phrase it a certain way, no

one would know which movie you mean.

After what happened,

you need rest badly.

But I don't. I was tired, but...

Why, I've never felt so alive before.

You're so... like a changed girl.

Oh, you look wonderful.

I feel wonderful.

I've never felt better in my life.

If I could get my hands on you,

I'd break your dried flesh to pieces.

And I will have Carfax Abbey

torn down stone by stone,

excavated a mile around.

I will fnd your earth box

and drive that stake through your heart.

As filmed, the Balderston script

told a much more elaborate story

of reincarnation than the public ever saw.

There were a whole series of different

historical periods represented,

in each of which she dies.

There was one in ancient Rome,

one where she is confronted by Vikings,

there is one in the Middle Ages

with crusaders.

There are stills that show

that they obviously had filmed this.

At some point it was decided

that this would slow the story line down.

When Universal began a new cycle

of horror thrillers just before World w*r II,

The Mummy was an obvious

candidate for reincarnation.

In The Mummy's Hand,

Western actor Tom Tyler was recruited,

not to play lmhotep, but a role so similar

that footage from the original film

was shamelessly recycled,

with close-ups of Tyler

substituted for Karloff.

The mummy was now called Kharis,

and instead of ancient scrolls and spells,

a new technique

was used to revitalise him -

an elixir brewed from

precious tana leaves.

Three of the leaves will make enough

fluid to keep Kharis' heart beating.

The mummy's already

ghastly appearance

was further enhanced

by a post-production optical effect

in which Tyler's eyes were meticulously

blackened frame by frame.

The effect was obviously not completed

in time for the theatrical trailer.

The film's exciting cl*max

was shot on an imposing temple set

left over from James Whale's

jungle adventure, Green Hell.

Stop him!

Spawned from the depths of doom

comes the most fearful monster

of the ages,

to strike with paralysing terror

the despoilers of ancient tombs.

Having already played the Frankenstein

monster and the wolf man,

Lon Chaney quickly added the mummy to

his stable of frightening characterisations.

In The Mummy's Tomb, Kharis

followed the characters from the last film

to a previously sleepy New England town.

Since the studio never explained

how Kharis returned from the ashes

following his immolation

in The Mummy's Hand,

there was no reason to think that

another fire would keep him down either.

Kharis still lives?

Lives only for the purpose

for which he was created:

To guard Ananka's tomb

until the end of time.

In The Mummy's Ghost,

John Carradine was appointed

the latest High Priest of Ananka,

the mummy's lost Egyptian love.

Ananka's reincarnations at Universal

had become so numerous

you almost needed a Rosetta stone

to decipher them all.

Do you not know who you are?

I am Amina Mansori.

You are the princess Ananka,

third daughter of Amenophis,

one-time Pharaoh of all Egypt.

You're mad.

This was the only film in the series where

Kharis and Ananka ended up together -

but, unfortunately, in the same

sorry state of preservation.

Amina!

By the time of The Mummy's Curse,

Ananka's swampy grave had mysteriously

moved to Cajun country.

The new Ananka,

actress Virginia Christine,

shared the audience's

growing sense of discombobulation.

It's so hard to explain. It's as though

I were... two different people.

Sometimes it seems as if

I belong to a different world.

I fnd myself in strange surroundings

with strange people.

I cannot ever seem to fnd rest.

As usual, the mummy's amorous antics

had a tendency to bring down the house.

In the end, the mummy faced the ultimate

fate, reserved for all Universal monsters -

a meeting with Abbott and Costello.

- Where will we fnd the mummy?

- Don't worry, the mummy'll fnd you.

His love lasted longer

than the temples of the gods,

and our undying fondness for the mummy

shows no signs of letting up either.

Call him lmhotep, call him Kharis,

call him anything - just don't call him late

for his tana-leaf tea.

I'm Rudy Behlmer.